Less Waugh to Love

Soon after I got married and started my tortuous ascent into the middle class, I saw the Red Stick Ramblers play the downtown Baton Rouge spring concert series. They were old friends of mine and I used to play with them in another band back when I was a young ruffian. Lead fiddler, Joel Savoy saw me and said "Hey man, you got fat". I thought, "Hey, that's what happens when one actually eats three meals a day, as opposed to the one or two I ate when I saw them every day".

A couple years later, I was in a band opening for Juice at SOGO Live, when an old friend of mine, Dave Jordan, said "Hey we all are older and that much fatter..." He made it seem as if it was normal to be fat as we approach middle-age.

About a month ago, some people at my work (the library) sponsored a Ten Week Challenge, where participants would try to lose ten pounds in ten weeks.

By coincidence I had recently broken the 190 pound mark in a recent weigh-in at my house. So I thought it was a good time to join up. But because I'm so competitive, I decided to bulk up the week before. I particularly remember eating a Veggie Burger w/ Cheese at Burger King, along with a large fry and large coke. A good 1000 calorie lunch.

We weigh in every Monday. My first weigh-in was 194 pounds. Thanks to the bulk up.

My first week I stopped drinking any sodas that had sugar. I cut out as much sugar as I could. My favorite phrase was "Diet Mountain Dew tastes just as good as regular Mountain Dew!".

On my second weigh-in I was just under 190. Wow! 4 pounds in a week, and all I did was cut out all that sugar (and avoided Burger King).

Oh, this is easy, I thought. I continued my diet. I still ate like I normally did and I maintained my slothful ways.

The next weigh-in, I had dropped 2 pounds. Alright! This is easy. Just cut out all that sugar. Not as good as last week, but that was because of my pre-weigh-in bulk up. 2 pounds a week is very respectable.

Then there was Mardi Gras, which promotes a certain type of indulgence. My next weigh-in showed me gaining .2 pounds. Aaak! What happened? I approached Lent with a new determination to cut calories.

I decided to start counting calories for all my meals and also started exercising. Thanks to the nice weather, I started walking around the mile and a half block during the last half of my lunch. I also would hit the exercise bike at my home. I also figured out that I needed to keep my calorie count under 2000 a day.

My next weigh-in I dropped another 2 pounds. My total weight loss was at 8.8 pounds.

I've been even more serious about my exercise and calorie counts this week, so watch out!